Bare Island 30th August 2008

Dive No. 317.
10.52 am, 15 degrees, 53 mins, 17.1 max, 11 av
DM Patrick, Liz, Carolyne, Julian and some other ring-ins.
My computer read 15 for the whole dive, which is the same reading as at Sth Maroubra a fortnight ago but it seemed much colder! I felt so cold that my feet and hands were numb at the end of the dive. The cold made it hard to enjoy the dive -- even with the procession of PJs (probably about 20 all together), often in pairs on the sponge gardens but also sheltering under ledges. Patrick took us to “The Wall” and was hoping to get us down to 20 metres but we headed back sooner than expected, probably owing to the inexperienced divers in the group. I was happy to finish though the water did feel slightly warmer in the more boring bits as we got closer to shore. There were at least two pairs of small cuttlefish, large schools of drummer and yellowtail, an octopus and the usual wrasse, hulas, goatfish and parmas.

Sth Maroubra 16th August 2008

Dive NO. 316. 10.58 am, 15 degrees, 53 mins, 14.9 max, 10.4 av
DM Peter, Liz, Carolyn, a couple; 15 degrees and I hadn’t dived for over a month but it didn’t seem as cold as I thought it would. It is a long walk from the carpark to the entry, either via the beach or from the rocks. We entered via the rocks a fair way south (or south east, as Maroubra seems to face north-west!) though there was a problem because Carolyn ONLY remembered her weights just as we were about to get in the water! We ended up doing the dive without the official DM, as Peter stayed with Carolyn. Navigation was easy, west-south-west on the way down the coast. There are nice landscapes here, with overhangs, large rocks and “caves”. The variety of fish life is not wide, with the usual suspects: large schools of mados, pomfrets and yellowtail, three giant cuttlefish, one or two Port Jackson sharks and a huge school of striped catfish - such a large mass that I thought it was a big rock in the middle of the sand. We also saw what looked like a soft coral - quite a large structure, looking like a large cauliflower in shape and colour. Getting back to shore was a chore, I opted to go via the rocks, which was a bit awkward, especially with the tide so low and then my tank came loose.